Progress Illinois

As Michael Sneed mentioned it in her Sun-Times column today, Gov. Pat Quinn recently commissioned a statewide poll measuring both his and challenger Dan Hynes' support among Democratic voters.  The survey, conducted by Democratic pollster Anzalone Liszt, found Quinn leading the state comptroller by 28 points on the sample ballot:

Quinn: 54%
Hynes: 26%
Undecided: 20%

751 live telephone interviews with likely 2010 Democratic primary voters in Illinois. Interviews were conducted between August 18-26, 2009, and were apportioned geographically based on past voter turnout. Expected margin of sampling error for these results is ± 3.6% with a 95% confidence level.

The polling memo from John Anzalone is clearly intended to dissuade Hynes from running (he is scheduled to officially announce his candidacy later this morning):

Hynes may not begin with the same deficit in name ID as many other challengers, but that also means he doesn’t have the same easy expansion potential as other challengers. He faces a difficult and expensive climb in a primary battle with only about five months remaining. [...]

There is no natural base for Hynes in this primary. Quinn currently polls over 50% with every demographic and geographic subgroup, including men and women, union and non-union households, whites and non-whites, the Chicago media market and downstate.

The poll also found that Quinn has a 72 percent favorability rating among the Democratic respondents, as opposed to Hynes' 56 percent.

Read the full survey below (click the button in the upper righthand corner to expand):